One of the wonderful things about Henfield is St Peter’s Church of England Primary School. It’s history goes back to the first school that opened on Henfield Common in 1812, and the school is proud of its history and of the thousands of children it has taught for more than 210 years. The Governors of St Peter’s of which I am Chair, are always looking for opportunities to prepare all our children for the next stage in their learning and to expand support for their development socially, emotionally and academically. Its part of what a Governing body does.
In March 2022, the government published a white paper which stated all schools were required to join a Multi Academy Trust (MAT) by the end of 2030 and as a result the Governors and the Senior Leadership team began to explore options for our school in conversations with both the Diocese of Chichester and local MATs. While the government has now withdrawn the immediate need to academise, the direction for all schools is towards becoming an academy.
After much research, the Governors felt that being part of a Multi Academy Trust that matches our ethos and the ambition we have for the children of our community is the right way forward. And we believe that joining the right Trust would mean that St Peter’s could provide even more opportunities for everyone. Over the last year , we invited a selection of local trusts to discuss this with us, and over several months we had meetings, presentations, governor board meetings and we visited schools already part of these MAT’s.
Throughout all our meetings the Hurst Education Trust (HET) consistently demonstrated that they would support our ambitions for the school, and would provide the resources, opportunities and the backing that would not otherwise be possible if we remain as part of the West Sussex Local Authority. Importantly, because HET works in partnership with the Diocese of Chichester, it is a Church of England Trust, and so we believe that they share our vision and values, and will work hard with us to ensure that our children have the best experiences and opportunities for learning, without losing our unique identity and what makes us special. The Governors are now proposing that our school converts to an academy within the Hurst Education Trust. We haven’t taken our final vote as we need to consult our staff and our parents but the conversion will take around 9 months, and in reality it will bring little change to our day-to-day activity in school. The children’s uniforms won’t change, and the head teacher and our staff won’t change either. We will still have a Governing body made up of local people and we will still be a Church of England School.
We will simply be working in partnership with a Trust rather than West Sussex County Council (although they will retain certain statutory functions with regard to admissions and safeguarding for example) We are proud of our school and our focus is always on what will best benefit all our children. We want them to thrive and our school leadership sees this as an exciting and positive step for the school and we hope the local community will agree too. If you have any questions about what this means for our school then do feel free to contact Darren Carpenter from HET who is working with us on our plans, and he can be contacted at
Darren.Carpenter@hppc.co.uk
Revd Paul Doick – as Chair of Governors